Donald trump

Thursday

Nick Newman

How Dr Seuss took on American isolationism

From our UK edition

A cartoon is doing the rounds online, critiquing American isolationism and the reluctance to engage with the war in Europe. It lampoons the head-in-the-sand myopia of the America First movement – and feels highly relevant today. But this cartoon isn’t new; it is from 1941. And its targets aren’t Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, but Charles Lindbergh and Joseph Kennedy. The cartoon, while acerbic, has a cosy, familiar quality reminiscent of children’s books – for good reason. It was drawn by Dr Seuss.   He was particularly critical of Lindbergh – an aviator hero, appeaser and possible Nazi sympathiser Long before the Cat donned his Hat and the Grinch stole Christmas, Dr Seuss – real name Theodor Seuss Geisel – was a political cartoonist.

Andrey Kurkov

Steve Witkoff is wrong to see peace in Putin’s eyes

From our UK edition

Kyiv ‘It doesn’t surprise me that they’re abolishing the Ministry of Education,’ my old friend Dima told me. ‘Judging by what Steve Witkoff said on the Fox channel, neither history nor geography are taught in America.’ Team Trump’s energetic but purposefully misdirected attempts to push the negotiation processes forward have left Ukrainians in shock. Each day reveals new depths in the Oval Office’s inadequacy and we can only shrug when we hear things like ‘Putin is not a bad guy’ or ‘I feel that he wants peace’. President Volodymyr Zelensky said something similar after his election in 2019, when he promised to negotiate a peace deal with Vladimir Putin within 12 months or resign. Neither peace nor his resignation materialised.

Paul Wood

Will Trump join the strongman club?

From our UK edition

The world’s most exclusive club, of presidents-for-life, is growing. It already includes Putin of Russia, Xi of China, Lukashenko of Belarus, Sisi of Egypt and Kim of North Korea. Then there are the other permanent rulers, MBS of Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf monarchies, not forgetting Khamenei of Iran, and half a dozen African leaders. Now Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is trying to join the club. He has engineered trumped-up charges of terrorism and corruption against the man who might beat him in forthcoming elections, Istanbul’s mayor. More importantly, Donald J. Trump openly admires such autocrats and clearly wants to be one himself. This is the age of the strongman – and the world is far more dangerous because of it.

Thursday

Henry Jeffreys

Could Trump’s tariffs be good news for British wine-lovers?

From our UK edition

Professional Englishmen and women – doctors, accountants and even journalists – could once afford to drink first-growth claret like Château Latour on a regular basis. In 1972, when the Daily Telegraph’s Guide to the Pleasures of Wine was published, Pomerol was still an obscure corner of Bordeaux, known for offering ‘very good value’. Those days are long gone. Prices began to take off in the 1980s, with Auberon Waugh blaming ‘American millionaires looking to impress their guests’. The 1982 Bordeaux vintage was highly lauded by a then-unknown young lawyer called Robert Parker Jnr who would go on to become the most influential wine critic in the world. After this, anything Parker recommended became unaffordable to most British wine-lovers.

Martin Vander Weyer

Will eggflation burst Trump’s bubble?

From our UK edition

‘You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs’ is a maxim attributed to leaders on both sides of the French Revolution. ‘Move fast and break things’ is today’s equivalent, emanating from Silicon Valley and amply demonstrated by Donald Trump and Elon Musk in their approach to government and geopolitics. ‘You can’t make omelettes at all if you can’t afford eggs’ might be the next variant: inflation and scarcity afflicting America’s favourite breakfast have become a major political issue. In brief, a dozen US eggs used to cost $2 or less but by January this year the supermarket price was $5 and rising – in some places $9 was reported, rationing had to be introduced and Mexican suppliers were spotted smuggling truckloads across the border.

Piers Morgan

What Donald Trump told me about Keir Starmer

From our UK edition

Two months into President Donald Trump’s second term, the habitual liberal hysteria about his rollercoaster presidential style is reaching shrieking banshee levels again. But as always with my friend in Pennsylvania Avenue, I urge patience and a focus on what he does rather than what comes out of his inflammatory machine-gun mouth. I sense cold, calculating method to all the apparent madness, entirely in keeping with Trump’s election campaign pledges, and predict that – after the current bumpy ride – he will get the US economy purring again, America’s border under firm control and win the Nobel Peace Prize for ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Oh, and he’ll annoy a lot of the right people in the process.

Freddy Gray

Ukraine is just one part of Trump’s Great Game

From our UK edition

Washington D.C. For Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin, it’s a case of today Ukraine, tomorrow the world. In their much-hyped telephone call this week, the Russian leader didn’t appear to give much away: a step towards a sort-of ceasefire, a prisoner swap and a few other bits and bobs. But Putin knows that Trump wants a lot more than just an agreement on the Donbas. Settling the most significant conflict in Europe since the second world war is merely a prelude to a much bigger deal in the Holy Land, a truly historic arrangement that could satisfy the Donald’s desire to be thought of as a peace legend. That’s why Trump sent Steve Witkoff, his special envoy to the Middle East, to Moscow to pre-negotiate with Putin last week.

Charles Moore

Putin is outwitting Trump

From our UK edition

In the incessant conflicts of life and politics, people who know what they want tend to win. That is why Stalin won at Yalta and why, despite the extreme disadvantages of his country’s polity and economy compared with those of the United States, Vladimir Putin is outwitting Donald Trump. He wants Ukraine (and has related revanchist imperial ambitions), and has spent many years working out how to get it. His probing has taught him just how much both the United States and Europe, in their different ways, do not know what they want. The only real mistake Putin made was to think that Ukraine itself did not know what it wanted. It turned out that Ukraine most definitely does not want him. What about Trump?

Rod Liddle

The shape-shifting Labour party

From our UK edition

It is difficult to gauge who is the more discombobulated by the Labour government’s recent Damascene conversion to a political viewpoint roughly approximating to common sense – the Labour left, Reform or the Tory right. It is equally difficult to believe that the current administration is the same one which took office on 4 July last year, so wildly different is its apparent ideological viewpoint. You will remember Keir Starmer’s first 100 days without much affection, I suspect.

Thursday

Matthew Parris

Trump wants Putin to win

From our UK edition

It is meet, right and our bounden duty to begin any column about Ukraine with a vigorous expression of the columnist’s distaste for the President and Vice-President of the United States. Consider that done. Donald Trump is a slob, a bully and a liar: a person of low character. J.D. Vance is a nasty and morally confused little snake: a thug’s venomous sidekick. It is also an appropriate preliminary courtesy to state without hesitation that Volodymyr Zelensky is a brave and inspirational warrior whose personal qualities set his country firmly on the path of resistance to an unprovoked attack. Done.

Martin Vander Weyer

Don’t touch Boots!

From our UK edition

‘Don’t stress over short-term stock market swings’ is a maxim on which Donald Trump and I might agree, even if he is keen to take credit for upward rallies. The shakedown of the past few days is a natural reaction to the wild six-week ride of Trump’s tariff and foreign policy gambits and the realisation that if he keeps it up, he’s far more likely to harm the US economy than boost it. But with a mad king surrounded by madder courtiers anything can happen, including ever more eccentric reversals. So watch the White House tragicomedy but don’t get hung up on the Dow Jones index. But having said that, there’s one stock whose descent is more significant than others. Tesla, Elon Musk’s electric vehicle company, has lost more than half its value since December.

Peter Jones

Does might make right?

From our UK edition

The criminals Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both believe that might is right. The whole question fascinated the ancient Greeks.  In his famous history of the long war between Athens and Sparta (431-404 bc), Thucydides (d. c. 400 bc) explored the question through speeches on both sides, but on one occasion – when Athens demanded the surrender of the small island of Melos – he put it in the form of a debate. Here is an edited sample, strangely apposite too: Ath: You know as well as we do that, in the real world, justice comes into it only between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak have to comply.

Tuesday

Ruth Bloomfield

How Trump is fuelling London’s prime property boom

From our UK edition

From Henry James and T.S. Eliot to Wallis Simpson and (albeit briefly) Taylor Swift, US expats have had a long love affair with London. But over the past year the number of Americans – overpaid, what with their favourable exchange rate, oversexed, possibly, and certainly over here – has been escalating fast.  In 2024, 6,100 Americans applied for British citizenship, the most since records began – in what’s been dubbed the ‘Donald dash’. And it seems it’s the wealthy who are leading the charge. According to estate agent UK Sotheby’s International Realty, four in ten of the $15 million-plus properties sold in the British capital last year went to US buyers.

Monday

James Innes-Smith

Who’s still laughing at Donald Trump’s hair?

From our UK edition

At last month’s Bafta ceremony, David Tennant attempted to make a joke about the state of Donald Trump’s hair, but it barely raised a chuckle. Not surprising, perhaps, when you consider the dramatic vibe-shift sweeping the western world. In a desperate attempt to stay relevant many on the progressive left are suddenly choosing to distance themselves from the luxury beliefs they once held as sacrosanct. But this has led to confusion, especially when it comes to comedy. For progressives, laughing at the right jokes became an indicator of moral virtue and political allegiance, so it was highly amusing to see all those nervous thesps wondering which segments of the ceremony they should be finding funny.

Thursday

Martin Vander Weyer

Do not be hypnotised by Trump’s America

From our UK edition

I’ve been judging a beauty parade, but I hasten to add that no bikinis were involved. Four leading investment firms were competing for the mandate to manage a charitable endowment – and offering insights into the way professional stock-pickers see the world. First, despite (or if you’re a disciple, because of) the madness of Donald Trump, any portfolio designed for even a moderate-risk UK investor will be heavily weighted towards US tech and consumer stocks. On the other hand, none of the pitches said anything about China or other previously fashionable emerging markets. And their lack of enthusiasm for pure UK equities (as opposed to London-listed multinationals) was impossible to disguise.

The Spectator

How many people live in leasehold properties?

From our UK edition

Back to the palace Donald Trump was invited for what will be his second state visit to the UK. Who else has been on more than one? – Olav V of Norway was entertained twice, in October 1962 and again in April 1988, although never at Buckingham Palace. On the first visit he was received at Holyrood Palace and the second Windsor Castle. – Margrethe II also undertook two state visits, in April 1974 and again in February 2000, both times to Windsor Castle. – Monarchs have an advantage as they tend to hang around for longer. Trump will be the first president to enjoy a second. Curiously, South Korea has had three state visits since 2004, but each with a different president. Low-flying planes How much low flying does the military undertake over the UK?

Lloyd Evans

My brush with a rabid monkey

From our UK edition

India A crowded bus station. A lady monkey with a baby clinging to its neck sidled past me, eyeing the banana I was eating. I barely noticed them. A moment later, claws dug into my back. A skeletal hand darted forward to grab my banana. The baby monkey was on my shoulder. I leapt up and shrugged vigorously but it climbed on to my head, so I twisted sharply this way and that to unseat the little nuisance. I felt a painful scratch on my neck. The furry bundle leapt off me and scampered away. I’d been bitten. A few bored locals gathered around to see if the kerfuffle was worth getting overexcited about. A samosa seller helpfully dabbed my neck with a rag soaked in oil from his smoking cauldron. I thanked him diplomatically for this pointless gesture. The crowd retreated.

Rod Liddle

The weakness of Donald Trump

From our UK edition

Forgive the mordant tone, but this article was written in a desolate post-industrial nightmare girdled by diversionary roads going nowhere aside from away from places. It is somewhere in middle England, where the West Country merges into the Midlands and the north into the south: it is essentially delocated, it is nowhere. There are 15 or so deserted light industrial units, vast metal hangars for storing stuff, acres of car-parking spaces and a few trees suffering from rickets or polio. There are also huge and very bright lamps shining in through my hotel window, betraying no evidence of their purpose other than to keep me awake, and in the foreground a continual mechanical hum, the source of which remains a mystery.

Katy Balls

Starmer is the unlikely hero of the hour. Can it last?

From our UK edition

When Donald Trump addressed Congress this week, he declared he was ‘just getting started’. His words will not have soothed politicians in the UK, who are still playing catch-up with the President’s first 43 days. This week, Trump proved yet again that he is the biggest force in British politics. His blow-up with Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House, threats of a trade war and the disparaging comments by his Vice-President, J.D. Vance, about European countries that haven’t ‘fought a war in 30 or 40 years’ dominated Westminster. Amid all the noise, UK party leaders have been drawn into new positions. Despite his close links to Team Trump, Reform’s Nigel Farage has denounced Vance.

Charles Moore

The bully-boy tactics of Trump and J.D. Vance

From our UK edition

Just before Russia invaded Ukraine three years ago, Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping announced a ‘friendship without limits’. The phrase seems to apply equally well to Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump. Has Trump ever breathed a word of serious criticism of Putin, questioned his democratic mandate, challenged his right to invade an independent country, condemned his kidnapping of children? Before his inauguration, Trump stepped in on behalf of ‘the hostages who are being held so violently, inhumanely and against their will in the Middle East’. He warned Hamas that there ‘would be ALL HELL to PAY’ for the perpetrators and that they must ‘RELEASE THE HOSTAGES NOW!’.